


Red and Black

by Brieface



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, I've never written E before wtf am I doing?, M/M, POV Enjolras, POV First Person, cheesy af let's be real here, light mention of wounds and blood etc, not very graphic but still contains some descriptions of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 16:17:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9910826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brieface/pseuds/Brieface
Summary: A short look at Enjolras' thoughts from the time he takes Grantaire's hand to the moment of his death.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya friends! A very small drabble for you, written after listening to Red & Black more times in a row than anyone could possibly consider healthy. Raw copy - no beta.

I take your hand without thinking, gripping it tightly. It's a thick weight in my palm, sweaty, covered in gunpowder and dirt and blood and clammy with fear and it holds on far too vice like to be comfortable.

 

I don't pull away, nor do I look at you as the guard, recovering from your interruption, level their muskets at our chests. My eyes are not on them, but on the sight of Combeferre and Joly, fallen to the floor as if in sleep. I could almost believe it were so - would want to believe it _was_ so - were it not for the blood stuffed holes that riddle the front and back of them.

 

I feel sick, and swallow it back with impatience.

 

Your hand twitches in mine, as like to be a tremble from the drink as it is to be from fear. Fear at the series of clicks that heralds the end of us.

 

I find my fingers curling more around yours, heedless of the rough feel of them, and think about how this is the last touch I will ever have from another person. Every other person who would reach out for me is gone now.

 

My gaze finds its way to you at last. You're looking at me, that same look you always give me, like I'm not real. Like it hurts you to look. I study your face, and in your eyes I see the same grim determination I feel. I almost admire you in that moment. I also see fear in your gaze, and _that_ I tell myself I do not feel. I try not to think about the love I see there, and raise my chin high instead. My heart is pounding as I turn to regard our executioners and I wonder if I could have returned that love, given time. There is no time. This is the end of our time.

 

I grip your hand hard enough for it to hurt. My muscles ache from too many nights spent on cold cobblestone. Pretending to sleep while I wait for the terrible finale to a failed revolution. I ignore the protestations of my shoulders as I raise our flag high above my head. It must cut a fine figure there, silhouetted against the dawn. Draped over the pair of us like the wings of vengeful angels, and red, red, _red_ with the blood of angry men. The blood of dead men. The blood of _our_ men.

 

_Finish both of us with one blow_ , you had said.

 

I turn to you and smile, and the smile is not yet ended when the report of gunshot declares that now, at last, it is our turn to die.

 

Dying is painful.

 

So much more painful than I could ever have thought, could ever have imagined, more painful than the oppression of the king and of the crushing weight of a failed rebellion. Agony shoots through my abdomen, my chest, my collar, and the force of it sends me hurtling backwards, steals the breath from my lungs and silences the cry of pain I want to make.

I still feel your hand in mine as I tip backwards, and desperately I wonder what a life I might have had, had I taken that hand sooner. Seen the love in your eyes sooner, cared more about the people of France than I had The People of France sooner. But it's too late. It's far too late. The regret is just another sting, one of too many to count.

 

My vision is already going black at the edges by the time I impact the window sill. I barely feel the hard dig of shattered glass into my back. My entire body is fire, and it is burning up too fast. Everything feels dark now, everything feels black.

 

Black.

 

The dark of ages past.

 

I can taste those words alongside the tang of copper on my tongue.

 

My last thought is not of France, but of a man, and as the last spark of revolution fades from me, the last breath of life, I realise that you have fallen inside the Musain and I have let go of your hand to take flight outside the window.

 

It is little comfort to think that you might have died before I, before our hands were parted. Before I was out of your reach. For I know that you never felt I was truly within it.

 

Black now.

 

Black.

 

The night that ends at last.

 


End file.
